Volund Starfire's Fitness Journal

So, this week I took my first photo shots and measurements.  Needless to say, I was not impressed.  Here are my initial measurements.

Height: 74″
Weight: 295 lbs
Neck: 17.25″
Chest: 52″
Waist: 47.5″
Hips: 49″
Right Mid-Thigh: 27″
Left Mid-Thigh: 28.5″
Right Upper Arm: 16″
Left Upper Arm: 16.25″
BFI: 32.7%
BMI: 37.88%

PU: 45
SU: 46
2MR: 28

This week was a prep week, dealing primarily with cardio and flexibility.

Sun: Measurements, pictures, and APFT
Mon: Walk, Cool It Off!
Tue: Walk, Cool It Off!
Wed: Walk, Cool It Off!
Thu: Walk, Cool It Off!
Fri: Walk, Cool It Off!
Sat: Walk, Cool It Off!

My workout schedule is broken down into five blocks that happen every three hours; 0700, 1000, 1300, 1600, and 1900, Sunday through Saturday.  Most of the programs are less than an hour long, but there are some that can take up to an hour and a half.  Sunday’s have a lighter schedule than the rest of the week, but it is not a day to laze around the house.  I’ll deal with Sundays in a further down, but let me detail out what each of the blocks are for.

0700 is my cardio block.  This block is for me to get my shebs out the door and up to the track for an hour.  I am playing things by length, 100 meters.  In the beginning I am just starting out with walking.  Later on, I begin inserting jogging into the walks (walk 400 meters and then jog 100 meters).  After a little while, I begin flipping it with a 100 meter walk inserted into the jogs.  After, I begin inserting full runs into the jogs, and then break the runs with jogging.  Finally, I insert sprints into my runs.

1000 hours is for my morning routine.  This is a light cardio routine that lasts for about thirty minutes.  It is mostly aerobic exercise and is video-based.  It is determined based on the program that I am currently in.  At times, when I hit the P90X doubles routines, I will be running the second video at this point.

1300 is the block I am holding out for the SaberFlow routine, video-based again.  I am looking forward to this once it is released.

1600 is the time for the main video exercise that I am doing with my wife.  All of the videos are coming from Beachbody.com and will cost a pretty penny.  Though, after finishing the P90 series, when I move to the P90X series, I will be losing my wife.  She will be going onto the female-oriented aerobics series produced by Beachbody.com.

1900 is the last block of exercise for me.  It is lighter than most and will involve only a 30 minute walk around the track.  It is mostly to walk off dinner with my wife.

Sundays are a little different for me and are separated into two different kinds of Sunday.  There is the System and the Recovery Sunday.  System Sundays include an hour walk at 1000 and the primary stretching video at 1600.  This goes on through the entire system except during the mid point.  The mid point uses the Recovery Sunday schedule.

On a Recovery Sunday, things kick off at 1000 with an APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test).  This is the older version of the APFT with two minutes of push-ups and sit-ups and a two-mile run.  I plan to use the scoring to test my fitness level and progression.  Depending on how things go with the new APFT, I might use it instead to test myself.

At 1600, it’s time for measurements and pictures.  First up are the measurements.  You can see what they are above.  It is to document changes in my body type and help keep me going.  The pictures include all four sides of my body and a second from the front with arms up “making muscles.”

The first week, that I just finished, is a Preparatory Week and is identical to the Recovery Week.  After that is the thirteen week program.  On the seventh week, there is a Recovery Sunday to take measurements and photos.  After the program is a Recovery Week for letting the body heal from the previous program.  After that, I ramp things up to the next program.

In early November of last year, I was in a car accident. It ended up shifting the plastic kneecap that the Army gave me.  Thankfully, I had a ten year/ten-thousand mile warranty!  They went in, reconnected it to the proboscis, and sent me on my merry way with six months of physical therapy.

Unfortunately, I was a bit of an idiot and kept to my previous (exercising) diet without the exercise for a couple of months  (which also happened to be the holidays), and packed on a little fluff… okay, a great deal of fluff.  So much so, because of a four month lay-up with only knee exercises and pain meds, that I put on pretty much all of the weight that I had lost since the explosion back when I first messed my knee up.

With that said, I am currently undertaking a new exercise program with previously tested results.  It is a series of ninety day (thirteen week) programs with a recovery week separating each.  They involve primarily calisthenics, with light to medium weight work, and aerobic cardio.  Added to this will be plenty of cardio to build my walking, jogging, and then running endurance back up.  Additionally, once Saber Flow gets up and running, I’ll be adding that to my schedule for flexibility, plyo, and because it will look cool when I costume.

I was going to begin the plan on the 3rd of April, but things came up and I had to put it on hold for a while.  Now, things are different.  I have begun the program on the 6th of November and will be continuing it through to the end.

The program is split into five different time slots each day.  The first is at 0700 with an hour of cardio on the track at the local university.  The second is at 1000 with a half an hour cardio video.  The third is 1300 with the Saber Flow (once it is up and running).  The fourth is 1600 with a strength building video that I do with my wife.  Finally, the fifth is 1900 with a light exercise and flexibility training.

I’ll be posting my weekly progress on Saturday evenings (or Sundays, depending on my schedule).  My rule is that if I miss two days of exercise, I will redo the week (except for recovery weeks).  So far, my body is telling me that it likes it.  By that, I mean it is telling me, “OUCH!!!”

I will be posting the details of this program on Sunday with my first real post, but overall I believe I have a good program going on.  It begins with a very slow routine and slowly ramps up into something that will challenge both the body and mind.

Besides the workout routine, I am also beginning a dietary program that does not cut anything out of my normal eating routing.  However, it does limit my caloric intake and split my meals into five parts throughout the day (an hour before each exercise routine).

The workout routine that I will be doing is from Beachbody.com.  It uses several of the more strength-oriented training programs that are offered.  It is not be a magic bullet, but will take a few years to get completely through it all.  In the end, I am hoping to have an Adonis-like physique.

I will be taking measurements of various body areas (neck, chest, waist, biceps, etc), BFI, BMI, weight, pictures of my body from four angles to track the changes, and perform an old-school Army APFT (push-ups, sit-ups, two mile run) to track my general fitness level.

The programs are: Slim in 6, Slim Series, Power 90, P90 Master, P90X (Lean, Classic, Doubles), P90X+ (Lean, Classic, Doubles), P90X2, Insanity, Insanity Deluxe, and Insanity: The Asylum.

This is one of the video programs that my Physical Therapist pointed me toward and I think that I have built it into a fairly good program. Oh, just fyi, I will be finishing the last video in the series on 15 August, 2015.